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Loading ...Aussie Gays Win Pope Protest Battle
07.15.2008 8:00am EDT
The ruling handed down on the opening day of the six-day World Youth Day festival paves the way for activists to hand out condoms and coat hangers – symbolizing abortions – to pilgrims in a demonstration planned for Saturday.
Three federal court judges ruled that the law was invalid under Australia’s constitution because they limited freedom of speech. The new regulations had made behavior that caused annoyance or inconvenience to festival participants punishable by fines up $5,300.
The legal challenge was brought by two activists from the NoPope Coalition, a group of gay rights and secular activists. The coalition is planning a rally on Saturday at which activists said they would wear T-shirts condemning Pope Benedict XVI and hand out condoms and coat hangers to pilgrims taking part in a procession through Sydney.
“We now have a lot more confidence to take to the streets to condemn Pope Benedict’s policies against condom use, against contraception, against homosexuality,” said Rachel Evans, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “We are glad that the court has ruled that we do have the freedom of expression to communicate our political views on Saturday.”
The New South Wales state government introduced the regulations for July only, saying they were the same sort of powers authorities normally have to quell potential trouble at big sporting events.
Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell said the church had not asked for the special rules, and had no problem with the right to protest legally.
Pope Benedict XVI is in Sydney for World Youth Day, which officials say has attracted more than 200,000 pilgrims from around the world. The pontiff does not have any public events until Thursday, when he tours Sydney Harbor and delivers a major address. The festival culminates with a papal Mass on Sunday.
The Pope – leader of one of the most regressive groups in mankind’s history. They created perverts with their puritanistic ideas about sex and priests marrying, then hid their rapes of boys and girls for decades for decades, lest people realize what hypocrits they are. Their history through the ages has been one of horror. It was they who gave the world the hatred of the Jews, which culminated in WWII and the holocaust of 6 million Jews and the death of 50 million others. And how many of you know that Hitler, an Austrian, was a catholic who apparently maintained some religious ideas throughout his life. It was the church that murdered 50 million Arabs during the crusades, all in the name of God, but really just to steal the wealth of the mideast. No wonder built into Arab culture is the potential for violence against us, for they too suffered their own Christian based holocaust.
And now it is just the next group – the gays, who dare to challenge the power structure of the church.
When the history of mankind is written, the Pope’s church will be seen as one of the great failures of the human spirit, and the utterly supreme master of hypocrisy, lies, and brainwashing, built on a foundation of superstition. And Jesus must weep, for what has been done in His Name.